Stock Market News

Europe is at risk of Japanese-style stagnation, Soros says

Europe is at risk of Japanese-style stagnation unless policymakers take more 'radical' action, according to US billionaire tycoon George Soros.

He said Europe's immediate financial crisis has come to an end but the region still faces a political crisis.

The bloc "may not survive 25 years of stagnation," Soros told Bloomberg.

"You have to go further with the integration. You have to solve the banking problem, because Europe is lagging behind the rest of the world in sorting out its banks."

Soros added that banks have been encouraged to pass stress tests, rather than boost the economy by providing capital to businesses.

He urged lawmakers to enact more drastic policies to dodge stagnation.

His remarks come after the European Central Bank earlier this month decided to hold the breaks on changing policy despite some calls for quantitative easing to tackle low inflation and high unemployment.

The question of whether the euro-area was at risk of deflation, which has plagued Japan since the 1990s, was raised at a press conference after the ECB's policy decision.

However, ECB President Mario Draghi dismissed the concerns saying the euro-area was unlike Japan's economy.

Soros is known as The Man who Broke the Bank of England because of his short sale of $10bn worth of pounds which gave him a profit of $1bn during the 1992 'Black Wednesday' UK currency crisis.

Stock News is provided by Digital Look Corporate Solutions from Sharecast news.
Please read the terms and conditions of useage of this data. Republication or redistribution of content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Digital Look Ltd.

Get a free widget for your website with our latest headlines.

You can now add our live prices and new headlines to your website.The news widget features quotes for Oil prices, spot Gold price and Indices plus a choice of news channel for healines.